Monday, October 19, 2015

Insurance works best when it is used as the foundation for a plan that will protect a business, family or estate that is confronted by the disablement process. If you already have an insurance package (or you're looking for insurance) and you want to know whether your insurance will really be sufficient for your needs, here are the questions you should know the answers to:

1. What Will You Need The Cover For?

We recommend that you grab a pen and paper and write down what your insurance claim proceeds will need to be used for when it is paid out. If you can't do this now before tragedy strikes then you may be facing trouble later. Having this list in place can give you a reminder of where the money needs to go when it comes time to claim. With insurance, it's always better to be safe than sorry.

2. Will You Be Able To Claim Soon Enough?Life Insurance pays out in the event of actual or impending "medical death". However, in 94% of cases in New Zealand, deaths are due to medical conditions not accidents. 65% are these are due to degenerative medical conditions such as cancers, heart disease and strokes which can kill slowly over what may be an extended period of time. During this time, unable to work and unable to support yourself, your family or your business, you will be facing tremendous financial strain which your insurance may not cover for. Will the bank or your creditors wait until you are terminally ill before your life insurance cover pays out? This is perhaps the most crucial consideration to take into account when assessing your insurance. We can help you ensure that you are fully covered financially in the face of these worrying statistics as unfortunately, basic life cover is most of the time, simply not sufficient.3. Is The Sum-Assured of Your Insurance Enough?It may sound strange, but a $250,000 insurance claim may not be enough to repay a $250,000 debt. You may have additional interest payments, penalties for being in arrears and you may need to pay a Solicitor, Trustee or your Accountant to carry out these transactions for you. It is crucial that you set your sum assured at the right amount to cover your debt and provide adequately for your family and dependants should something happen to you. Take into account all factors, costs and if necessary, talk to us and we can help you find the amount you need.4. Do You Have The Right Insurance?If you have income protection insurance - do you have the right kind? If you have health insurance - what does your health insurance actually cover and what do you need it to? If you have permanent disability or critical illness insurance - how are these insurances structured within your overall portfolio of insurance and how will they work if something happens to you? The bottom line is, you need to figure out what risks you are most likely to face, take into account your lifestyle and your financial situation and then select the right insurance to meet your individual needs. This is why it's so important to have robust insurance advice from insurance professionals like us - we can find out what's right for you. Sometimes having the wrong kind of insurance is almost as bad as having no insurance at all.5. Are You Making Assumptions About Your Insurance?Making assumptions about your insurance without proper and solid research and planning is always a mistake. Even assuming that you or someone close to you will be physically, mentally and emotionally capable of applying the claim proceeds to yourpredetermined targets is not supported by our experience of dealing with over 200 insurance claims. Question everything, and get a second opinion from insurance professionals to make sure you've got it right.6. What Should You Do?We recommend that you use experienced professional advisers to not only design and review the underlyingplan, but to execute it and carry out the tasks they are best suited to handle. If you don't have a plan now, prepared with clear-headed purpose, then any insurance you do have may well be insufficient or not adequately fit to your unique needs. Remember that if in doubt, you can always use our experienced professionals if you need guidance or advice - our service is completely free and no obligation, so you have nothing to lose!

Monday, October 5, 2015

Spratt Financial Services presents our new and updated list of the most common insurance questions we receive and our answers to them.

1. Do I really need risk insurance?

Health Insurance:
Although it may seem easy
to adopt a standpoint of ‘it won’t happen to me’
as it relates to
insurance, it
is an unfortunate statistical fact that you will
require
hospitalisation,
surgery or medical procedures at some point in
your life, in many cases
more
than once. Within the current medical system, the
only way to ensure
that you
and your family will receive the treatment you
need promptly and without throwing your finances
into turmoil is by
taking out
health insurance.

Life Insurance:
If you are the breadwinner of your family, or you
want to make sure
your loved ones are supported in the event of your
passing, some form
of life insurance is a necessity. Unless you have
an extremely significant amount of savings to
cover all of your debt and provide for your
dependants as long as they will require, we
believe that you should always have a life
insurance policy in place. The risk is not worth
taking.

Income Protection
and Disability Insurance:
People sometimes operate under assumptions that
severe illness
will result in recovery or a relatively quick
passing away.
Unfortunately, that is most often not the case.
The large proportion of cases of
serious illness (heart attack, strokes, cancer
etc) result in a
protracted period of physical disablement, during
which time you will
be unable to work and maintain the income
necessary to cover your
expenses - which will not be on hold until you to
get better! This is why income
protection and/or permanent disability cover can
be essential if your
family depends on your income to maintain their
way of life. With the
right cover, you can have the peace of mind that
your income will be maintained in the event that
tragedy strikes.

Key Person Insurance: If you run a business
and your business prosperity relies on several key
employees or directors, key person insurance is a
very good idea. It will provide compensation for
their loss if they are disabled through illness or
injury and support your business financially until
an adequate replacement is found and the business
is back on its feet. In some instances, proper key
person insurance can be the difference between a
business surviving or having to shut down.

Although cover may seem unnecessary from a short
sighted
mindset,
the alternative of having to bear the burden of
excessive treatment
expenses, leaving your family without a solid
income or unable to
maintain their life in the event of your passing
makes the cost of
premiums a small price to pay.2. What types of insurance can you provide?Spratt
Financial Group can offer all types of risk
insurance for both individuals and
businesses/corporations, no matter what the size.
This includes:

Life
Insurance

Medical/Health
Insurance

Trauma
Insurance

Income
Protection and Redundancy Cover

Mortgage
Protection Insurance

Key
Person Insurance Cover

Total
Permanent Disablement Insurance

Spratt
Financial Group can also provide a full range of
fire and general insurance, including home,
contents, vehicle insurance, business
stock/vehicle/building insurance, pet insurance,
travel insurance and liability cover.3. I can't afford every type of insurance - which ones are most important?For
most people, it is simply unfeasible financially
to have every possible form of risk insurance
available. As such, it becomes a question of
discerning which ones are most important for you
to have. The answer to this will differ based on
your personal situation and our team can discuss this with you
more fully at any time if you wish. However, in
most circumstances, we recommend at least a basic
combination of medical insurance (to
insure that any medical procedures you need are
covered) and life insurance (to provide
for your dependants if something should happen to
you). If you have room for more in your personal
budget, trauma insurance and/or income
protection can provide you with good peace
of mind if you were to suffer a protracted illness
that renders you unable to earn a living.4. Are there any cheaper forms of risk insurance?If you
are looking to save money on your insurance, there
are certain more specific and less costly options
available to you. For example, if you cannot
afford a full income protection policy, redundancy
cover is a cheaper alternative (although it will
only cover your lost income due to being made
redundant). Another less expensive option is
mortgage repayment insurance, which will cover
your mortgage payments if you are disabled and
cannot earn an income. As you can see, these are
more specific forms of insurance, but they do come
with considerable savings in premiums compared to
regular income protection or trauma insurance
policies.

5. Are there any other options to save money on my insurance?Yes
there are. Spratt Financial Services can offer you
many avenues to save money on your insurance.
Firstly, with our healthy relationship with New
Zealand's top insurance providers, we can often
negotiate better deals for your cover than you
will find alone. Also, many people can end up
paying more than they need to be for their
insurance by not having the right sum assured or
the right type of cover for them altogether. Our
insurance brokers will take the time to find out
your personal circumstances and secure the right
cover for you at the lowest prices available.6. Health Insurance: Which type of Health Cover is best?The
primary benefits of
having health or medical insurance are guaranteed
protection from the
risk of
having to pay for your own treatment, as well as
obtaining the best
possible
care with the least amount of delay or stress. In
general, for most
cases, a
hospital and surgical combined with a tests and
specialist policy will
provide
you with a basic and effective level of cover. We
also specialise in
more
specific insurance plans covering optical and
dental expenses, and also
routine
GP visits and checkups. As to which specific plan
is the best for you, there
are a number of variables which our advisers are
more than capable of
explaining personally in a thorough and
understandable way. Feel free
to get in
touch with us and we can talk you through the
options that are best for
you.7. Health Insurance: Are there alternatives to Health Insurance?Not really.
Although it may be tempting to think that you
could save
the money you would normally pay into a medical
insurance policy
for
possible future use, the levels of medical
inflation means that an
investment would need to grow at an unrealistic
rate to keep up.
Obviously there is a chance that you could go
through your entire life
without ever making a claim (which would be a good
thing) but there's
also the possibility that you need to make several
significant claims.8. Trauma Insurance: Which medical conditions will allow me to claim?In our
experience, many New Zealanders who have trauma
insurance could make a substantial claim which
could help their finances tremendously and are
unaware that they qualify. Your trauma insurance
policy will tell you exactly what claim you are
entitled to and which conditions will make you
eligible. For the most specific list of these
conditions, please consult your policy wordings. A
list of conditions could include:
Cancer (including malignant tumors), angioplasty, aortic surgery, cardiomyopathy, coronary artery
bypass surgery, heart attacks, cardiac arrest, alzheimer's disease, coma, dementia, encephalitis, major head trauma, meningitis, motor neurone
disease, multiple sclerosis, muscular dystrophy, stroke, paralysis and loss of functionality, loss
of hearing, loss of sight, loss of speech, loss of
use of limbs, advanced diabetes, liver failure,
lung disease, renal failure, HIV, major burns,
major transplant surgery.

If you're unsure what these conditions entail or
if you qualify, you can ask
us anytime and we'll be happy to help.9. Which Insurer provides the best Health or Life Insurance policy?The
answer to this question
will vary depending on your own personal needs
from your insurance
plan. There
are a number of factors which need to be taken
into account when
choosing a
provider. Every company is slightly different in
the way that it
structures its
cover. For instance, some companies base their
premiums on the age of
the
youngest adult covered, some have ‘per-child’
premiums, whilst others
have a
flat rate no matter how many children are covered.
Companies
also differ in the way they process
claims for procedures (health insurance) or in the
event of the policy
holder's death (life insurance). This is why the
service we provide can
be so beneficial to you, as our
knowledge of each company is unmatched, and taking
your personal
situation into
account, we can quickly and easily find the best
insurance option for
you.10. Should I choose an excess?Adding
an
excess to your policy can
have
practical benefits in the long run, as most
companies offer a discount
on the
monthly premium for doing so. This saving,
over time, can
add up to a
significant total over the course of several
years. Furthermore, it is
an
unfortunate fact that premiums will continue to
increase over time.
Adding an
excess is one of the options we can provide you
in order to mitigate
these
increases, keeping your insurance costs
manageable and saving you money.11. What if I need to make a claim?We
pride ourselves in providing the best
and most comprehensive claims service in the
country. We know that the paperwork and
procedures involved in claims can be burdensome,
especially during your most stressful times.
Fortunately, you can
leave all
your claims in our capable hands and we will get
you the results you
need in
the quickest and easiest way possible for you.
We promise that with us, your insurance claim
will be as easy and stress free as possible.12. How much will my insurance premiums increase over time?This will depend on the choice of company, and will be taken into account in our initial consultation with you. Some have age-related premiums increasing each year, whereas others calculate premiums on five year age bands. Regardless of how often these age-related increases are applied, you can expect to receive an increase every year or so to reflect higher than expected claims (company wide rather than specific to you) or to take the rise in medical costs into account. Factors that contribute to higher claims costs include:

Increasing premiums are a necessary fact of life in terms of insurance, however we can provide several strategies in order to lessen these costs. These strategies can include adding an excess, shifting insurance providers or making policy adjustments, always ensuring your best interests are our top priority.13. I'm applying for insurance - do I need to remember details of my medical history?It
is necessary that you can recall as much as you
can of your significant
medical
history. The main thing when completing an
application for insurance is
to
disclose as much as possible of any past medical
treatment or
consultations.
Failure to do so could impact claims on your
insurance policy.14. How do I get started?For
more information on how
Spratt Financial's team of insurance brokers can
assist with managing your insurance
programme, use our
contact form here or
contact us by email at enquiry@sprattfinancial.co.nz. You
can also call us any time at 09 307 8200.